


maybe i could save you from your sins

by softambrollins



Series: i know you. [1]
Category: Professional Wrestling
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Betrayal, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Cliffhangers, Codependency, Dark Past, Emotional Baggage, Enemies to Lovers, First Meetings, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Internal Conflict, Kindred Spirits, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Obsessive Behavior, Recreational Drug Use, Repression, Rival Relationship, Self-Denial, Self-Destruction, Self-Doubt, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:13:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28319526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softambrollins/pseuds/softambrollins
Summary: Seth's good at pretending for a long while. Until Dean Ambrose walks into FCW two years later and looks him dead in the eyes. Like he's seeing every part of him, the cracks that go all the way down to his soul. And he thinks,Oh.
Relationships: Dean Ambrose | Jon Moxley/Seth Rollins | Tyler Black
Series: i know you. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2074026
Kudos: 8





	maybe i could save you from your sins

**Author's Note:**

> Spans from their very first meeting to Seth's betrayal.
> 
> I started this in December 2019, so I figured I should post it before next year. You definitely should read both parts together.
> 
> Merry Christmas and happy holidays to any of you who are still reading this stuff. 💖 Congrats on making it through this hell of a year.

Seth feels like he's been acting since the day he was born. Playing pretend. Playing a part. Until it wasn't a game anymore. It was just his life. 

Maybe none of us really know who we are. Maybe we just decide who we want to be at some point and go from there. Maybe some of us are just trying on different costumes our whole life and none of them ever really fit. Seth wants to fit into _all_ of them. He wants to be smart and good and interesting and honest and kind and brave and cool and dangerous and indifferent and passionate —

He makes himself over a million times. Athlete and scholar and poet and punk and nerd and finally, _wrestler_. Wrestling's always felt right. Performing is in his nature. Leaving blood, sweat and tears on the mat every night means no one's questioning who you are, if you deserve this, if you're enough. It's the rawest sense of belonging. Seth's willing to give everything he has for this. 

He starts suspecting that maybe he's not really a good person. That he's selfish. That he only cares about people so he won't be alone. That he wants more than this town can give him. That he thinks he's bigger than this place that made him. It feels wrong and shameful and he tries to hide it. Tries to play the role of the good son and the good friend and the good boyfriend. So no one would suspect the treacherous thoughts festering in his head. When in his mind he's already a million miles from here, with all of them left behind. 

He wonders if everyone else has to try so hard to be a good person, to convince themselves they are. Maybe if they're really good, they don't have to try, they just _are_. 

Seth has a dream of standing on top of the world. All by himself. Like some conquering hero from a history book or a fantasy world. The thought of just living some ordinary life feels like a failure. He knows that he'll do anything he can to make that dream into reality. Sacrifice anything. He won't ever let anything get in the way of that. It's almost a sacred, unspoken vow he makes to himself, constant and underlying everything he does. He's going to be _great_.

As a kid who sometimes felt like he didn't really fit in anywhere, he used to like the way wrestlers looked on TV: strong, fearless, larger than life. He thought that there was no way they had these kinds of thoughts running through their heads. They _knew_ who they were. Maybe they were just playing a part too, but they were so convincing. He wanted to be that convincing. To make everyone believe him. That he could do anything. That he was good and right and _enough_. 

*

He cultivates the perfect persona to get where he wants to be. A little cocky but mostly gracious, driven, hardworking. Fearless. Willing to do anything, take any risk, to get noticed. He's talented, he's always known that, but it's not just about talent. It's about being what they want you to be. Someone they can cheer or be jealous of or be intimidated by. Someone they won't forget.

People start talking about him. Touting him as the next best indie wrestler. It's a start. It's a step in the direction he wants to go.

*

He meets Dean Ambrose on a chilly Chicago street one day in 2009. He's sitting in the back of a moving van outside an old gym. He has a cigarette nestled between his middle finger and forefinger, wisps of dark grey ash falling onto his washed-out blue jeans. His other hand is curled around the neck of a beer bottle. 

"Hey," he drawls out of the corner of his mouth, looking up at him from under hooded eyelids. Seth can only just make out that his eyes are blue; somewhat dulled by the alcohol, they're almost the same colour as his faded jeans. His hair's dirty blonde and straggly, too long and falling into his eyes, like he needs a haircut. He's clean-shaven, though, and it leaves him with a slightly round, boyish face that doesn't match anything else about him. He looks like he belongs in some low-budget emo music video, but Seth's admittedly not really in a position to judge himself. He'd probably dismiss him as just another strung-out loser wasting his life, but something about his voice strikes him differently. He sounds drunk and completely present at the same time. Seth thinks that's maybe how he always sounds. Seth doesn't think he's ever tried to be anyone else in his whole life. 

Seth's heard of him, of course. He's watched those videos like everyone else, and it's hard to reconcile the blood and guts and raw intensity with the nonchalant guy in front of him. He looks like a different person without that permanent sneer on his lips, like he's seen every shitty thing the world had to offer and he wasn't impressed so he decided to take matters into his own hands. He looks like he doesn't have a care in the world right now but Seth knows that appearances can be deceiving. Dean's not intentionally trying to hide anything now. He's just one of those guys who instantly becomes alive and incendiary when a camera's on him. Like he needs to tell his story to the world even if it kills him. Like that's easier than talking about it when the cameras aren't on. Less real. Just like it's easier to bleed. Seth couldn't look away from him. Now he's almost normal, although Seth knows that's the farthest thing from Dean Ambrose. 

"I've seen your stuff — you're pretty good," Dean says after a moment. "So what's your story?" 

It takes him by surprise, that Dean’s curious about _him_. 

Seth starts talking, the same thing he tells everyone he meets, that he's rehearsed in his head enough times that it's started to sound genuine. "Nothing much to it. Grew up in a small Midwestern town —" 

"Same," Dean says, nodding, and it's strange to think about him having anything in common with Dean. 

"My family's great but I wanted to get out, you know. That same old, clichéd story. And wrestling's the only thing I wanted to do. Parents thought I was crazy for a while —" 

"We're all crazy," Dean says with a knowing look.

Seth just shrugs in what he thinks is an unassuming manner. "But I was pretty good at it. So I stuck with it. And it hasn't been that bad so far."

"Headed to the Fed someday?" Dean asks, like he already knows the answer.

"I hope so. What about you?" 

"Pretty much the opposite of what you said. Family's fucked-up. I never _chose_ to wrestle. It was just the only thing there was for me. If I wasn't doing this, I'd be in jail, you know? And I like drinking and sex too much to be stuck in the can." Dean gives him a wolfish grin. 

Seth's never felt like he knew someone so well within five minutes of meeting them. Dean's exactly who he is, on camera, in the ring, drunk in the back of a van parked on the side of a downtown street, all the time. Seth feels a swell of something like jealousy but also something else he can't quite discern right now. 

"Well, it was nice to meet you, man. Maybe we'll run into each other again someday soon." Something about the idea of facing Dean in the ring both thrills and terrifies him. It's the same feeling he gets when Dean looks him in the eyes. 

"Yeah, see you around, bro." Dean puts his beer down to shake his hand and it's warm despite the coldness of the air around them. 

Maybe he should forget about him after that but it stays with him for some reason. The chance meeting. His voice. His peculiar mannerisms. The way he acted like he already knew Seth. Like it was a foregone conclusion that they'd see each other again someday. 

*

Seth used to be so self-conscious in front of cameras. Like they were stealing something from him. Exposing him. He has too many things to hide. Every person watching is like pieces of his armor being removed. He can't let them see the cracks. Now he's trained himself to give them only what he intends to. 

Seth's good at pretending for a long while. Until Dean Ambrose walks into FCW two years later and looks him dead in the eyes. Like he's seeing every part of him, the cracks that go all the way down to his soul. And he thinks, _Oh._

*

Seth finds him after the show outside the building, leaning against a wall, a cigarette dangling from between his lips. His hair's shorter than the first time they met, he looks older somehow, like an actual adult now. Like he means business and not just his usual business of barbed wire and wreaking carnage. Seth wonders what's changed in the last two years. But his eyes are the same. His voice is the same. It still hits him right at his core. There's a part of him that felt like maybe he'd imagined their first encounter this whole time, so now it's almost like seeing a ghost. A ghost of someone you knew a long time ago that still haunts your dreams and your thoughts and now is somehow right in front of you, as solid and real as anything.

Seth reaches up and steals the cigarette out of his mouth before he knows it, and then takes a spot against the wall directly opposite him. Places it between his lips, takes a slow drag.

He tries unsuccessfully to stifle his cough. He's always been shit at smoking; as a perennial poser, it wasn't even worth it for the street cred. That's why he could never really hang out with the theatre kids back in school.

Dean cracks a smile as he hands it back.

"So, what are you doing here?" he finally asks.

"Someone told me that this little shit from out in the cornfields of Iowa was apparently claiming to be the big man over here. Can't let you get too cocky, Rollins," he says with an unnervingly familiar wink.

"You don't even know me," Seth says, and somehow that comes out like a lie.

Dean frowns at that for a second, before nodding, then shrugging slightly. "Maybe I know you better than everyone else here."

"You wanna prove that?" he says, his voice much bolder than how he feels.

"Oh, I will," Dean tells him, looking him right in the eyes. It sounds like a promise. Of what, he's not really sure. But some part of him is dying to find out.

Seth swallows hard now, his heart suddenly beating five times faster than before.

*

Their first match is a blur. It's like he can't remember anything but Dean staring at him, his hands on him, his body against Seth's like he knows exactly where every weakness lies, reacting to every movement like he knows it's coming, like he can read his mind. It's like he's not even in his body at all, like it's just his subsconscious tangled up with Dean's, on some other level, somewhere far away from the rest of the world.

Everything he does is like a dare. A whisper in his ear. Like, _Show me, show me what you can do._

Seth's suddenly forgotten everything he's learnt about wrestling over the last six years. Seth's forgotten every rule he's ever had, everything he's ever hidden. The perfectly constructed character he's presented every single time he stepped inside a ring. Dean's stolen something from Seth. Crept around him in the dark and picked his pocket. Without him even knowing it. Robbed him blind.

No one's ever figured Seth out before, but here's Dean Ambrose now, and it's like he's inside his fucking head. He can't get enough of it, like he's a drug coursing through his veins. He thinks he could fight him forever if he just keeps looking at him like that. Like he _sees_ Seth, who he really is, and he thinks that he's worthy of his attention, his fixation, that he's enough. 

*

After Seth finally breaks their deadlock a month later, he knocks on the door of Dean's locker room. He stands there for a couple moments, wondering what he's expecting, wondering if he's making a mistake. And then Dean opens the door and when he sees him there, he just looks mildly irritated, face twisted into a scowl before it settles back into indifference. He stands there in the doorway, leaning against the frame, arms folded across his chest, not quite looking at him.

"What do you want?" Dean asks impatiently. 

Seth just lets all the words fall out of his mouth in a rush, disjointed and probably tactless. "I just — I just wanted to say — That was a hell of a match. I didn't think I could beat you, honestly. I thought this might go on forever. No one's ever given me that kind of fight. Not in my entire life. I've never been challenged like that before —" 

"Well, good for you," Dean says with a mocking smirk. "I'm really glad I could be such a great _challenge_ for you on your way to fame and fortune."

"That's not what I meant," Seth tells him firmly. "I meant, I think you're really fucking good too. Low blows, cheating — you don't need to do any of that. You're better than that. You could go really far."

"Oh, so now you _know_ me, huh, right?" he says, looking right at him now, and he's smiling that tense smile that Seth's come to learn means he's fucking furious. That is a clear warning of danger, like a glowing red sign in the dark. But Seth's not about to be chased away now. He knew what he was getting into from the very beginning. Maybe the danger's the appeal now. Or maybe it's knowing, with a certainty he still can't explain, that that's not all Dean is.

"I don't know. Maybe I could," he says quietly, knowing he's testing his luck.

"So what? You want us to be _friends_?" Dean says, spitting it out like he's disgusted by the sheer thought of it. "Just because we had a great time beating the shit out of each other, that doesn't mean I wanna be pals, okay? Not today, not _ever_. So just get the fuck out of here, Rollins."

"Okay, fine, I'll leave," he says, turning to go.

But then he stops himself, reaches out and grabs the door before Dean can close it in his face.

"Wait. I just wanna know. Why did you really come here, Dean?" And it's the first time he's really said his name.

He fully expects Dean to bodily shove him back out into the hallway or just fucking deck him now, but instead he just rolls his eyes, lets out a sigh. His gaze falls to the floor as Seth just carefully watches him.

"I just wanna fucking prove that I'm worth something," he says, his voice raw and raspy now. "Not to anyone else. Not to any of those people. Not to any of the suits up in Stamford. Just to myself. For me."

"Yeah, I get it," Seth says, nodding. But he knows he'll never really be able to understand.

"I never thought I'd be here. I never in my wildest fucking dreams thought I'd make it to the biggest fucking company in the world. But now it's _right there_. And I used to just be happy with the clothes on my back, with my piece of shit car, driving to gigs wherever I could get 'em. In whatever shithole, I didn't care, as long as they'd let me fight. But now, it's like… I have to _try_ , right? What kind of idiot loser fuck-up would I be if I didn't try?" he says, giving Seth a genuine smile probably for the first time since he got here.

Seth shakes his head. "You're not a loser or a fuck-up. I think you're gonna do everything you wanna do. And more. Because you worked hard for it. And you deserve it."

"Am I still an idiot though?" he says, that stupidly charming, roguish _Dean Ambrose_ grin back on his face now. And maybe Dean's right, maybe they can't be friends. But it feels like the start of them being _something_. 

Seth laughs. "Yeah, maybe."

*

Dean gets his win back a week later, beats him clean thanks to his injured shoulder. But he's not gonna make excuses. He was just better tonight. Seth let his guard down and Dean smelled blood in the water, so how could he resist? Somehow it almost feels like they're meant to be even forever, neither of them ever really getting the upper hand for too long. And it's frustrating but enticing at the same time. Dean's always gonna be there. An unanswered question, like he said. As long as they're even, maybe this doesn't have to end.

*

Dean costs Seth the title a month later. He just disappears backstage while Seth stands there in shock, wondering what the fuck just happened. It feels like he's been robbed of something, and not just a shiny medal, but something _between_ them. Something they were creating together, something real. And maybe that's why he did it, to destroy whatever illusions Seth may have of him. Some part of him was maybe even looking forward to Dean having the chance to take it from him for real. Not like this. He's made it all dirty now, dishonourable, and that's what Seth hates the most. Like pulling the veil up to reveal the ugly, twisted insides this is all built on. If he and Dean are the same, then that unravels everything he's ever tried to be in front of the world, his whole entire life. He can't let that happen. And as soon as he can get his wits about him and actually move again, he goes after him. 

Seth chases him down a hallway, fucking furious, yelling obscenities and vague threats in his general direction.

"What the hell did you do, Ambrose? What the fuck was that? I'm going to fucking _kill_ you, I swear to god —"

Dean turns around just to give him his biggest shit-eating grin.

"I _own_ you" he mouths, before he disappears out a side-door.

Seth just lets out a frustrated groan and punches a wall, hard. 

He doesn't know what he expected.

*

Seth finds him in an alley a couple weeks later, passed out, his face all busted to shit. He thinks he's dead for half a moment and his heart screeches to a halt in his chest. But then he falls to his knees on the filthy ground and touches a hand to his face. He's warm, still breathing.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Ambrose," he exhales sharply as his heart restarts again, thumping wildily in his ears.

He gently cradles Dean's head in his lap, willing him to open his fucking eyes, and after a few minutes of silent pleading to the universe and God and everything else he doesn't believe in, he finally comes to with a shuddering breath.

"God, Ambrose, _God_ , we need to get an ambulance or something —" 

"No fucking hospitals," he says, voice rough like sandpaper. "I'm fine."

Seth takes him back to his place. He sits him down on the edge of the tub in his tiny bathroom as he stands in front of him at the sink. Tells him not to fucking move an inch. Dean looks like he's going to protest or maybe punch him in the face. He pours alcohol onto a soft cloth and slowly brings it up to his face. Dean reaches out and grabs his hand before he can touch him and Seth just stares at him, eyes wide and unblinking, barely breathing, as Dean stares back at him, face impassive. But Dean just holds his wrist there, thumb lightly brushing over his pulse point, for a long moment before he lets him go. Like he's decided something. Or like he's letting Seth know that he trusts him in his own way.

Seth takes a breath and then he goes to work, carefully cleaning his cuts and bruises, as Dean lets him, eyes closed, so quiet, only shifting slightly or wincing in pain when it burns. After, he takes each of his hands in turn in his own, cleans his shredded knuckles one-by-one, before wrapping gauze around his hands. He puts band-aids on the biggest cuts, one above his eyebrow and one on his cheekbone. Up close like this, he looks awful. There's swollen, purple bruising around his eyes and his lips are split and bloody.

Seth gets him an ice pack from the fridge but when he comes back and hands it to him, he just gets up with a groan and sets it down on the sink instead. 

Dean stares at himself in the mirror for a second, both hands braced on the sides of the sink. He raises an eyebrow, tilts his head like he's actually impressed.

"Didn't know you had nurse's training, Rollins," he teases, but it almost sounds like a compliment.

"We get beat up for a living," Seth says pointedly. "Has no one else ever done this for you?"

Dean shrugs again but it's sadder, defeated. "Only ever patched myself up," he says, voice low. "Dental floss and a bottle of whiskey is all I ever needed."

"Well, just be glad you're not dead," Seth tells him bluntly.

Dean turns to look at him with a disbelieving look on his face. "Oh, come on, you're not still mad about the stupid title, are you? I was just fucking with you, man. And you're meant for greater things. Everyone knows that." He almost sounds like he means it, too.

"I can't believe you reeled me in with your sad story just to screw me over. I mean, I should've _known_ —"

"Well, it's not my fault you're just so easy to play, Rollins," he says, with a smug, self-satisfied smirk.

"Fuck you, Ambrose," he tells him, but there's no real venom in it and they both know it.

Dean goes back into Seth's bedroom when they're done cleaning up and Seth follows a moment later. He expects him to just crash, he can barely stay on his feet without Seth supporting him. He hopes he doesn't have a concussion and that Dean's stupid decision-making and stubborn refusal to go an actual hospital doesn't lead to him actually not waking up this time and actually dying. In his apartment. In his bed. He wonders how he'd explain this to the police, to their bosses, to anyone, to the board of a multi-billion dollar company and Vince fucking McMahon. Not that any of the higher-ups probably even know or care about two dumb assholes like them down in Tampa, kicking the shit out of each other every night for an audience of no one just because it feels so damn good.

But then Dean turns around and looks him in the eyes and it suddenly feels like he's startlingly sober and lucid.

He puts his hands on his face, strong and firm, calluses brushing against his cheeks, and kisses him, hard and desperate and unyielding, tasting of stale beer and dried blood, and it's like they're wrestling again. Like Dean's inside of him, like he wants to take him apart piece by piece and know all of him completely. He kisses him like he wants to mold them together, like he wants to physically crush them into each other until they're one being, until it's impossible to separate them. Like a car crash at a hundred miles per hour. Crumpled metal and electric sparks and burnt rubber and the smell of gasoline and inhaling smoke. He feels like his internal makeup is being rearranged by Dean's hands, his tongue, his breath passing through Seth's lungs.

He presses Seth back against the wall behind them, hands roaming all over his body like he wants to touch him _everywhere_ , claim every part of him just as his mouth is claiming his own. He moves his hands down until they're on his chest, curling into his shirt, and then down again, over his stomach and sliding around his hips and curving over his ass, pulling his hips nearer, still kissing him just as hard and intensely, his knee sliding in between Seth's legs. He slowly skims his fingers up over his back and then settles his arms around his shoulders, his hands coming to rest in his hair like they belong there. Have always belonged there.

He sighs against his lips and kisses him slower now, more gently, fingers tangled in his hair and guiding Seth's mouth over his own.

Seth only pulls away when he feels like he's actually starving for oxygen, their foreheads resting against each other, taking a long, deep breath.

Dean tilts Seth's head up so that he's looking right in his eyes. He rests a warm, solid hand on his neck. Assertive. Possessive. It's the same way he looks at him when he's pinning his body to the mat. Like Seth is _his_ now. It sends a thrill of exhilaration down his spine, to all his nerve endings.

"I know you," he says, quiet and breathy, and it's like he's already taken all his clothes off. 

Dean fucks him with the lights on, kissing him with eyes wide open, and it's the first time in his life that he feels like a real person. And it's like this was always going to happen. Somehow it's not scary or unsettling at all, being this known. Because he knows Dean now too.

And it's just like in the ring. Dean instinctively knowing every part of his body, Seth not needing to say a word. Touching him exactly the way he wants exactly where he wants. Rough when he wants it and slow when he needs it. Like they're colliding and melting together on some other plane where there are no boundaries at all between their bodies. Like their skin doesn't exist, like they can reach right through each other. Like they're one and the same.

*

They're total opposites. They couldn't be more alike. 

Maybe on the surface they're different but there's some dark, rotten, corrupted part of them deep down inside of them that's been growing all their lives, that thrives away from the light, that's exactly the same. Seth could tell the moment he met him. Like recognises like. 

Dean's been thrown away by everyone. Seth's never been enough for himself. 

Dean may think he's the bad guy, everyone may think he's the bad guy, but Seth has a sneaking suspicion that he's actually one of the few good guys left in their sordid world. 

Seth may act like the good guy onscreen but he doesn't think he'll ever really figure out how to _be_ one. 

*

He doesn't know what possesses him to ask. He just figures Dean probably has nowhere else to go, and he's not really fond of the thought of him staying here alone with no one to drag him back home every night and make sure he doesn't choke on his own vomit. 

"Wanna come back to Iowa with me for the holidays?" he asks. It's after their last show of the year and they're sitting next to each other at a bar and Seth's still only relatively buzzed so he can't even blame that.

Dean just laughs incredulously. "I'm pretty sure I'm the last kinda guy you should bring home to your parents, Rollins."

Seth rolls his eyes. "That's not what I meant." 

Dean just regards him for a second, eyebrows knitted together like he's trying to figure something out, before his lips slowly curve into a smirk that's sharp as a knife. "Oh, you mean, we could just get drunk and hook up?" 

"If that's what you want," Seth says casually. 

He expects Dean to laugh in his face again. But he's just quiet for a moment and then he says, "Fuck it. Why not."

*

Dean complains about the cold constantly. He'd left all his winter clothes wherever he was living before he came to Florida, so he's just bundled up in about a dozen layers and a thicker jacket he'd borrowed from Seth. He uses his lit cigarette to keep his hands warm. 

"My fucking ass cheeks are freezing together," he growls when they step outside the airport. 

Seth shakes his head. "Seriously? After surviving years of death matches and actively trying to destroy your own liver, _this_ is what's going to be the end of Dean Ambrose? What a shame."

"Fuck off," Dean says, shoving him hard in the side, almost making him lose his balance on the slippery sidewalk, but he's laughing at the same time, his ribs aching from it.

Dean crashes in his parents' garage for a week and somehow he's actually endeared himself to his mom with his crazy stories and colourful obscenities. There's something magnetic about Dean, about the way he's always completely himself, even if you think he's bad news. 

Seth suspects she'd be less charmed if she knew how much alcohol he was imbibing and exactly what he and Seth were getting up to on the pullout in the garage in the middle of the night when everyone's sound asleep. 

They drive around town in a beat-up old minivan, Seth showing him all his old haunts when he was in high school as he tells him stories about he and his friends doing all kinds of dumb shit to get themselves hurt or in trouble or both. It's probably not anything close to what Dean's childhood was like, though. But he just smokes his cigarette and listens, just making a hum of acknowledgement or approval here or there. 

They get wasted and wander around the streets downtown after dark, stumbling and clutching at each other on the sidewalks, and Seth grabs him and drags him into an alley to avoid a gang of people he used to know, kids from high school, kids he despised who grew into people who are probably never going to get out of this place. Dean just gives him a loose smile, stars dancing in his eyes, and Seth leans in and kisses him, almost sweet or as sweet as they ever get, and he tastes like somewhere else and he feels like he can fly so, so far away from here and never come down. 

The last night before they leave, they take his mom's car and park in the middle of an empty field where kids used to sneak away to make out back in the day. They lie on the hood, passing a joint back and forth that one of his old friends hooked him up with. 

Seth hasn't smoked since high school and Dean seems to favour more destructive habits, but it's good, maybe just what they need before they head back to Florida. Busting their asses with no promise of actually getting out anytime soon. 

It doesn't seem to affect Dean much, he's still exactly the same, but Seth feels lighter, freer. He's not thinking so much, about himself, the future; all the uncertainty and anxiety inside of him has come unknotted. He can just breathe. Maybe it's not just the drug. Maybe it's being out here in the middle of nowhere, nothing but vast, open sky above them, like they're all alone on the planet. Maybe it's just being here with Dean. 

"I can't fucking imagine living in a place like this my whole life. I'd blow my brains out. I fucking _hate_ it," Dean says, voice harsh, clenching his jaw tight, and he sounds like he really means it.

"I hate it too. But sometimes I don't. And maybe that's even scarier," Seth says quietly, watching his breath floating in front of his face.

"Why did you bring me here, man?" he asks, and he doesn't sound mad now, just vaguely annoyed, and curious despite himself.

Seth doesn't have an answer to that. He has a lot of answers. Maybe he doesn’t think Dean is real, whatever strange connection they have, maybe he thinks he made it up, but if it still exists here in this place where nothing extraordinary thrives, then he's not imagining it. Maybe just the idea of Dean Ambrose in his perfectly mundane hometown was too surreal and absurd to miss out on. Maybe he needed to see if his two worlds that feel so far apart could coexist. Maybe if they could, then these two different people could exist within his skin. 

Maybe he just wanted Dean here because he wants Dean always, wherever he is. 

"I just wanted you to see where I come from," Seth tells him simply. "You can come from the most normal family in the world and still be screwed-up. It's not genetic. It's not environmental. Just like you don't have to be cursed just because of where _you_ come from."

Dean just looks kind of taken aback and kind of amused. "I don't know why you think I have all these layers and shit when all I've proven is that I'm a selfish, sadistic fuck who drinks too much and is probably destined for an early grave."

"Because I _know_ you," he tells him, holding his gaze, more sure about that now than he's been about anything in his life. 

Dean doesn't say anything, just reaches across and kisses him, eager and wet and sloppy, tasting of weed and crisp Midwestern night air. 

*

Dean starts to pull away after that. And maybe it's just Dean being Dean, but he's suddenly scared that they might be coming to some kind of end. Maybe he'll get called up and leave Seth right here, or maybe he won't and he'll just get in his car and drive back to Philly or Chicago or wherever the road takes him. Without a care. Without one thought of him. Maybe Seth will wake up one morning and he'll just be gone without a trace, like he'd just imagined the hurricane named Dean Ambrose that came into his life without a warning and completely wrecked it but also made it so much _more_. 

He feels almost desperate, like he has to _do_ something before it all slips away from him again. He has the title now, he has everything he wanted, but somehow, this feels even more important. So he confronts him, like Dean did all those months ago. Looking him in the eye. Reminding him that _This is what you came here for. You came here for me. Don't forget it._ Bringing this back to what it was in the beginning. Just the two of them in a ring. Focused completely on each other, like the rest of the world doesn't exist. Simple and pure and electric and undeniable. Everything Seth craves and never wants to lose. 

After the match, Dean kisses him in the locker room, licks his mouth open, hot and filthy, adrenaline still pumping through both of them, and then falls to his knees in front of him, takes him in his mouth, and he closes his eyes and everything just slots back into place, feels _right_ again. 

*

After Dean's last match with Regal, after the end of FCW, they end up in the parking lot, sitting on the hood of Dean's ancient rustbucket, sharing a lukewarm beer.

"What happens now?" Seth asks sombrely.

"I don't know. Maybe we go back to the good old Midwest. Do the same shit we've always been doing." He sounds bitter about it but Seth knows otherwise.

Seth knows that Dean would be happy with that. He's happy just doing this, driving from town to town in his shitty car with the windows down listening to classic rock with a smoke between his lips, wrestling in shitty warehouses and high school gyms, eating shitty diner food, getting thrown out of dive bars every night. Having a couple bucks to his name. Not being tied down to anything. Being able to just get up and go in the middle of the night, blowing away on the wind if his heart so desired. Maybe they both have that same itching underneath their skin but Dean's usually just itching for a fight. Seth wants the _world_.

"Or maybe everything changes. Maybe we get everything we ever wanted now," Seth says, giving him a significant look.

Dean lets out a bark of a laugh. "I don't know, man. I don't know if that's in the cards for people like us. Maybe _this_ is all we get."

He casts his stare to the scene in front of them. An empty parking lot. The back of the cramped, musty building they spent the last couple years in, wrestling in front of a handful of people, learning about themselves and each other. So close yet so far from the stadiums and the blinding lights and the glamour and the spectacle he grew up watching on TV.

Seth just grows quiet, takes a sip of the beer, passes it back to Dean. He looks up at the sky, the stars that usually feel so, so far away but maybe they're a little bit closer tonight. He'll think about this for a long time.

*

The Shield is different. Maybe they're both pretending now that this could work. A brotherhood. A family. It should be a joke. It's the same stuff they used to laugh about over a couple drinks after they'd spent the night beating the piss out of each other. These poor, sad fuckers. Thinking that that's what will make them happy. A nine-to-five and two and a half kids and a perfectly ordinary life in the suburbs. Going out of your fucking mind from the mononity. Because that's what you think you should have. What everyone wants. It never lasts anyway. So why even pretend?

But maybe they get too good at pretending. Until they start to believe it themselves. And that's dangerous. When you live your life as a con artist, you have to be careful you don't end up conning yourself. 

Roman takes them home for Thanksgiving one time and it's so normal and familiar and it feels like he can _have_ this and he looks across at Dean, Dean who can't sit still for a minute without reaching for a smoke or popping open a beer or trying to destroy himself or something else, and he looks so comfortable and at home and _happy_ and it's like he suddenly can't breathe. 

When they go upstairs to the guest room and Dean tries to kiss him, he turns away, feeling like he's going to be sick.

This is wrong. This is everything he never wanted. Everything he left behind.

It suddenly starts feeling like time is running out. 

*

Seth finds him in a hotel stairwell months later after they leave the Authority. He would assume he's probably drinking, but he can't remember the last time Dean was drunk. That would've been unthinkable just two years ago, but it's different now. They're different. Or at least that's what they tell themselves.

Seth slides down on the same step next to him, back leaning against the wall, eyes tracing over his profile.

"You okay?" he murmurs.

"Yeah, I just wanted some quiet, you know?" He sounds relaxed, content. He's been doing good lately, he's gotten better at just staying still, appreciating the small things. Instead of just waiting for it to all go to shit.

Seth nods. "Yeah, I get it."

It's all they wanted, travelling around the world, wrestling in front of giant crowds, but it can take a lot out of you. It's exhausting, even for Seth who's so practised at not giving away too much. Sometimes it's hard to remember who he's supposed to be now. With Dean and Roman. Sometimes he thinks he'd do anything for them and it makes him want to destroy everything. Then Dean looks at him and it's alright again. For a moment. But maybe one day it won't be. It won't be enough. 

"Who would've thought we'd ever be here, huh?" Seth says with a soft sigh.

"It's pretty far from the indies, man," Dean says, smiling at him. "And from that fucking warehouse in Tampa."

"So, you never get the urge to just get in your car, hit the road, leave everything and everyone behind again?" he asks carefully.

"No. No, man. I think — I think I'm happy, you know." He sounds surprised, taken off-guard by it even as he says the words.

"I'm glad you are," Seth tells him honestly, even if some part of him is already breaking, knowing that it's not going to last. Dean's happiness is a beautiful and terrible thing. It's all he wanted since he met him. But there are other things he's wanted longer, his whole life. Maybe it's impossible to have both. He knows, has always known, that he can't have Dean and be what he wants to be too. At some point, he'll have to leave it all behind. And it feels like that day may be coming soon.

"What about you?" Dean asks, turning to look at him, gaze soft. "You happy?"

"I don't know. I want to be. I want to be so much," he exhales, eyes falling away from his face.

"It's easier than you think, you know," Dean tells him earnestly.

Oh, Seth wishes that were true. He wishes that were true with everything he has.

*

Seth stares at Dean's sleeping figure in their hotel room for a long time. Thinking about another night, years ago in Tampa, how right it felt. It's different now. This is not what they were supposed to be. They weren't supposed to buy in to the image they projected to the world. This was supposed to be a means to an end. Nothing more. Nothing less. Dean's gonna fucking hate him. But he knows how this goes. He's been here before. Maybe he'll get a fight out of it and Seth will get the world, so they'll be even. Even like they've always been. He'll probably self-destruct for a while, but that's not new. He's survived the rest of it, his whole entire life. He'll be fine. He'll move on. He'll realise that Seth was never going to change, he was always going to be _this_ , he was never worth it. Seth will make sure of it.

He gets up, slowly walks over to the door, looks back only one time, before opening the door, walking through it, and quietly closing it behind him.

*

He doesn't expect the look of pure betrayal on Dean's face after he swings the chair. He wonders if he's pretending for a moment, but that's not Dean. He swings it again, without hesitating, until Dean's fallen to his hands and knees so he can't look at him like that anymore. He swings it again and again and again, until he forgets that look completely. It's over. It's done. He's free.

He walks away. Knowing now, with a clarity and resolve that's both overwhelming and a relief, that this is exactly who he is. Who he will always be.


End file.
